Liz Truss has said it was a “wrench” to see her “friend” Kwasi Kwarteng leave government after she sacked him as chancellor over the fallout from their disastrous mini-Budget in September.
In a last-ditch bid to reassert her authority and reset her government amid turmoil in the markets, the prime minister told Mr Kwarteng on Friday his services were no longer required.
The move came ahead of a press conference later in the afternoon where she U-turned on her campaign promise to reverse the previous government’s pledge to raise corporation tax as she tried to win back the support of her MPs and investors.
PM: ‘It was a wrench to see my friend Kwasi Kwarteng leave the government’
In a comment piece for The Sun newspaper on Saturday, Ms Truss said it was a difficult decision to dispatch Mr Kwarteng – replacing him with Jeremy Hunt, the former health and foreign secretary – but that she was determined to press ahead with her vision for a “high-growth, low-tax economy”.
“It was a wrench to see my friend Kwasi Kwarteng leave the government,” Ms Truss wrote. “But in Jeremy Hunt we have a highly experienced new chancellor who shares my desire to build a high-growth, low-tax economy,” she added.
Immediately after entering No 11 Downing Street, Mr Hunt began ripping up what was left of Ms Truss and Mr Kwarteng’s economic policies.
In a series of interviews over the weekend he suggested that taxes might have to up and that public spending would need to be cut, as he attempted to restore financial calm as the Bank of England’s emergency funding package to shore up pension funds came to an end.
Jeremy Hunt was appointed as new chancellor on Friday
Mr Hunt’s dismantling of the mini-Budget looked set to continue on Monday as the Treasury announced early in the morning that the chancellor would make an emergency statement to bring forward measures to support fiscal sustainability.
It was widely expected that Mr Hunt would scrap Ms Truss’s plan to slash 1p from the basic rate of income tax, currently at 20p.
Mr Hunt, who has called on his colleagues not to get rid of Ms Truss, will address MPs in the Commons later in the afternoon.
